Liesmith
by We Stole Vodka From The Optic
Summary: ITunes Challenge. Loki-centric, all gen.


**... So the Itunes challenge. Brief snippets. Yeah, right.  
**

**This got away from me very quickly, very fast. Hope you enjoy, because I've no idea where I pulled half of this from!  
**

**Entirely gen, no pairings.  
**

* * *

Liesmith

* * *

**1. Let Go – Frou Frou**

_/So, let go, yeah let go_

_Just get in_

_Oh, it's so amazing here_

_It's all right_

_'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown/_

Gungnir slips from his fingers, and it is easy, so very easy to just slip into the pathways of Yggdrasil, to accept the branches of the tree with open arms and to let himself slide away with the shattered remnants of the Bifrost, into a place where the word _home _becomes just a word, not a wish.

Loki doesn't break eye contact with Thor until he's completely gone, a speck on a spectrum of color, and even then he can feel the devastatingly weak feeling of tears pressed against his cheeks. His eyes close, he just lets himself drift, farther and farther. Out here, there is no sound. He can imagine branches swaying, a wind that carries him away.

Because, in the end he is just a leaf, is he not? An Asgardian without a cause, a meaning, a Jotun prince without a family or a kingdom.

_Or a father_, but he clamps his mind down on the thought before it goes any farther and just lets Yggdrasil take him somewhere, anywhere.

* * *

**2. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed – Los Campesinos**

_/You feel terrified at the thought of being left behind_

_Of losing everybody, the necessity of dying_

_Oh, WE KID OURSELVES THERE'S FUTURE IN THE FUCKING,_

_BUT THERE IS NO FUCKING FUTURE_

_I'm just practicing my accents, picking at old sutures/_

The ice slips between his fingers. He can _feel _the magic beneath his skin, feel it boiling like water, struggling to get out. Beside him on the steps, where they can overlook the gardens, Thor snorts.

"What use is there in magic, brother?" He asks, voice taut and tense. The ice shimmers, caught in the light. "Something more straightforward is better suited for battle."

"Jealous?" Loki says, forcing his voice into a lilt, so it sounds like he's joking. But green eyes snap onto the leisurely form of Thor, slovenly slouching as he sat. And for a moment, Loki could bark out laughter, because those eyes _look _jealous, longing.

But Thor snorts again, and Loki has half-a-mind to compare him to a horse, "Of course not!"

Loki laughs, spreads his fingers wide and twists his wrists so the magic forms a multi-pointed star. The form is difficult, far beyond the level a boy of his age should be at, but he manages to hold it for a few moments before they shatter into fragments. He sighs, irritated, and runs a hand over his hair, keeps it plastered against his head.

"Father is rather late." Loki says, quiet, looking out at the long bridge that leads to the Bifrost. Thor nods, lets out a humming, thoughtful sound. "Later than he said he would be."

"I cannot wait for the day," Thor says, finally, after a long while. "That we are allowed to join him in battle."

Loki says nothing, lets his silence speak for him. He thinks, instead, half to himself and half to the darkest part of his mind, _what sort of King eagerly looks for a fight?_

* * *

**3. Bridge And Tunnel – The Honorary Title**

_/You are the only thing_

_The only thing that he has left_

_The only thing at all_

_The only thing at all/_

Loki had expected him. To talk at least once while he sat in this cell that wasn't really a cell, cross-legged on the ground as he waited and waited. Loki's eyes had opened the moment he'd heard the hissing sound of the opening doors, had fixed upon Thor with no longer hidden disdain as the man – the brother who wasn't a brother – stood in front of the glassed windows.

He didn't move from his spot on the ground, simply gave Thor that lupine, toothy smile.

"My," Loki says, his voice a mere hiss. "You only come when you're sure I cannot flee. Truly, an action so worthy of a _King." _He spits out that last word, like it were poison.

Thor squares his shoulders, a habit of anger, Loki notices, and the smile only widens.

"Brother," Thor says, and then breathes in. His shoulders deflate. "I will bring you home, when all of this is over."

"Home?" Loki shoots him a look of feigned confusion, narrowing his eyes. "And where _is _home, Thor? Asgard? That isn't _my _home."

"We may not be brothers," Thor says, steely. "But we were raised together, we fought together," And Loki is reminded of that day in Jotunheim, so very long ago. With snow and fathers and false fathers. "It is _our _home."

"And what if I have no desire to return?" Loki asks.

"Father—"

"_Your _Father." Loki reminded him, chin in the palm of his hand. "Not mine."

Thor shot him a hard, cold look before continuing, "Father will accept you back. I can make sure of it."

Loki almost wanted to call him a liar, before remembering that Thor had an incapability of lying.

"Oh?" Loki needled, the smile becoming a fast, harsh frown in a matter of seconds. "He will, will he? And what of my punishment?"

Thor seemed to backpedal, his eyes growing wide and his shoulders slouching once again.

"No answer?" Loki asks, eyebrows raised. "I knew you were stupid, but surely you cannot be this dim? Come again and tell me the answer when you realize just how cruel _your," _He emphasizes the word, stretches it out. "Father is."

He expects Thor to turn tail and run, defeated and deflated with all sorts of poisonous seeds placed about his brain. So imagine Loki's surprise when he hits the glass wall with a fist, causing the Liesmith to shift and recoil and stand.

"I would not let anything happen to you," Thor whispers, barely a whisper because to Loki it seems as loud as the thunder the man can summon at will. "I swear it."

And it is then he leaves, and Loki stares after him as he does.

It is only after the door closes that Loki allows himself to laugh, a laugh choked with half-hitching sobs.

* * *

**4. Girl With The Red Balloon – The Civil Wars**

_/So lovely_

_So lonely_

_Floating away_

_Did she let him go or did the four winds blow him away?_

_Does she even know?/_

He allows himself many thoughts while the Chitauri keep him captive, while Thanos decides just what to _do _with a wayward Asgardian prince. His fate and freedom have never been his to hold, but he doesn't deny how _afraid _he is, really, or the fear that boils beneath the very fabric of his being.

This place, this realm, is cold, desolate. A place without life, or meaning, beyond the Chitauri. They keep him bound in a place he can easily escape, if he had any wish to. The problem is, the real heart of the matter is, is that he isn't even sure he truly has any wish to leave. He has nowhere to go, no home across the Yggdrasil nor any family or friends which he may return to.

So here, it is only Loki and his thoughts and the soft shifting sounds of this near-silent realm.

He tries to remember everything that came up to this point, schemes and thinks and wonders. The last thing he can remember, the last bit of his memory before he wound up in the wormhole, is letting go of Gungnir, of Thor's yell, of the way he slipped into this place.

It is an unknown realm – and this bothers Loki more than anything – and he is an unknown place with an unknown foe with an unknown purpose, and all this unknown business is beginning to get under his skin, digging and crawling until he can't stand it anymore.

He tries, and there is a severe emphasis on the word try, to think of happier times. This within itself is difficult, as the idea of happiness is something lost to him, something seemingly far away.

Regardless of how Loki tries to think out these thoughts, they always come back to Thor, and the process is soured. Ruined. Sullied to the point where Loki must audibly curse.

He tries to create multi-pointed stars – something he has mastered at this point, so many years from that time on the stairs – and fails. This cage that the Chitauri and Thanos have him in prevent sorcery.

In the end, he lets those thoughts wander to Thor, and Odin, and even Frigga. Family has become a meaningless word to him, a false word, but he allows him to fall into it anyway.

He thinks of the times he had with Thor as a child, when the favoritism hadn't yet seemed so blatant. And for once, in what seems like a very long time, he allows himself to truly smile.

* * *

**5. Somewhere Only We Know - Keane**

_/This could be the end of everything_

_So why don't we go_

_Somewhere only we know?/_

They put him right back in a cell again, and this time he hadn't planned on it. Everything is lost, and Loki truly finds it in himself to simply sit back and allow it to happen, to let the world around him pass. The fear he feels, deep and twisty beneath his skin, but he packs it down in his stomach until it becomes little more than a hot coal. S.H.I.E.L.D will decide what they will, but even then Loki knows what will happen, what will become of him.

He spends three days within that new cell, sitting and recovering and pacing madly when the other two failed to calm his nerves, until Thor enters and finds him.

They stare at one another for a moment, Loki inside the glass and Thor looking in.

"The mortals have decided—" Thor starts, slowly, carefully.

"To take me to Asgard." Loki finishes for him. "Where I may be killed for my actions, or worse." Loki smiles, scoffs and lets out the start of a laugh before it sputters off into something more numb and half-hearted.

"I expressed to you," Thor says, eyes hurt and sad. "That I would not let it happen, brother."

Loki laughs, chuckles, "My, you really are quite the liar, Thor. Such a poor habit, something you truly must cull."

And that makes Thor look even more hurt, even more confused.

Loki closes his eyes, shakes his head, and smiles.

"Let us go to Asgard," He says, finally, his voice a mere hiss. "I've truly become bored of this place."

When Thor slips the mouthguard around him, when Loki feels his magic slipping away from him like he's losing a limb, the fear begins to overcome him.

* * *

**6. Dashboard – Modest Mouse**

_/Well we scheme and we scheme but we always blow it_

_We've yet to crash, but we still might as well tow it_

_Standing at a light switch to each east and west horizon,_

_Every dawn you're surprising,_

_and in the evening one's consoling/_

Of all the Avengers, save Thor because Thor is within himself a bundle of issues for Loki, whether he chooses to acknowledge them or not, Loki finds the Widow the most intriguing.

An assassin, a killer of her fellow mortals, an intriguing little thing which he may pick apart, plant insinuations where there once were none. And yet, he fails.

The Widow tricked the Trickster. He's not sure how it happens – but he realizes it soon enough. She has done what he has always done: pin down the weaknesses and the flaws of the people in front of you, and exploit them. Use them, twist them to your own will until you've won.

It's almost funny, especially when he knows that she'll realize, eventually that it certainly doesn't matter if she figures it out – Loki wins in the end, anyway.

* * *

**7. Razorblade – The Strokes**

_/Sweetheart, your feelings are more important of course_

_Of course_

_Everyone that wanted_

_Everything that we would take from them_

_I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know_

_Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me_

_No, don't._

_Okay/_

Jotun blue spreads across his features, and his eyes become deep, deep red like the red of freshly-spilled blood.

Loki smashes the mirror in front of him, watches hairline cracks spread across the glass. The toiletries on the sink shake. His quarters, the air within his rooms seems to press down all around him. What happened in Jotunheim had been bothering him, and he needed something to distract him from the fact that _Thor was gone._

He had felt it, ever since that Jotun had grabbed his arm, an itching above and beneath his skin. Loki sunk to the ground, gasped, breath hitching, let his head smack the wall behind him.

_He knew, _he _knew _there was something… different about him, that set him apart from the other Aesir. He just hadn't known that it would be _this, _something like _this._

Loki stares at his hands, watches the splotches of pale pink as his color – fake coloring – returns, watches as he becomes something less than the monster that he knows he is. Loki stares and stares and stares and wonders, deeply, if Odin knew about this.

He had to have known about this, there had to be a _reason. _A reason as to why he was like _this, this _thing.

Loki isn't sure what makes him go – and he can't remember standing up from his place on the floor and moving, running, until he was in one of the many halls with not a destination in sight – but he ends up in the hall of relics anyway, with the Tesseract so painfully close.

He's not sure what makes him lift it, but when he does he can taste something on the tip of his tongue.

Loki thinks it might be the very thing he has craved all these years: _power._

* * *

**8. Legion – VNV Nation**

_/And what will happen?_

_Will I dream?_

_I am too scared to close my eyes._

_For a second please hold me._

_None can change in me these things that I believe._

_But I don't know what happens now._

_I am too scared to close my eyes./_

He could feel their stares on him the moment he enters the great hall, can hear the whispers and the outraged shouts as he trails behind Thor; the lost prince of Asgard returned. Of course, he was never quite a prince. Nor was he ever quite a child of Asgard.

Odin doesn't waste much time with him, looks at him once with those eyes, those condemning yet hurtfully gentle eyes and sends him away. They can decide what they wish to do with him soon, Odin must confer with Thor, _what has happened on Midgard?_

Loki decides it's better to just let the words wash over him, to ignore and sit and bide his time. He passes the Warriors Three and Lady Sif on his way to the dungeons, holds their gazes with wild, horribly sharp green eyes until two of them look away. Sif and Hogun don't. They hold his gaze and stare even when he passes them. It's enough to make his lips quirk, but not quite smile. An impossible task with the mouthguard.

He passes Thor the last, pauses a little beside his brother and brushes by him accidentally, thoughtlessly.

A silent _remember what you promised, _because the words cannot fall from his lips. Loki feels fear again, eating away at the very core of his being.

He is left in the dungeons, in a cell that prevents his magic from becoming a weapon, with nothing but his thoughts once more. This seems to be something that occurs often these days, and his thoughts seem to grow increasingly redundant, increasingly twitchy.

He is left with his fear, and there is nothing that can assuage it. He wonders what will happen to him now. Certainly not anything worse than what Thanos may do when he discovers that Loki has failed.

On the fifth day, Thor visits.

"There is a Midgardian term," Loki says, to no one in particular, eyes fixed upon an increasingly interesting patch on the wall. One of the magic dampeners. "A painfully mortal sentiment, so I am sure you will appreciate it a great deal, but we really must stop meeting like this." He flashes a smile, shark-like with wild eyes.

Thor says nothing, simply watches him from outside the cell. The flames flicker in their braziers, and Loki finally turns his head just a little to look at him.

"So tell me, _brother," _Loki lets the word slip out in a mocking, smiling tone. "Whatever will they do with me?"

"Our Father will do what he must, brother," Thor says, softly. Gently. A cat's paw. "As he always has."

That makes something within Loki flare up, adds fuel to a fire that has been fed for over two millenniums. His face draws in, his lips curl in a sneer and his eyes are ablaze.

"What he must." Loki echoes, and then barks out a string of laughter. "What he must, hm? Or whatever you _will_, I suppose? Or _his will?"_

Thor opens his mouth to say _something _but Loki just wishes he would be silent, so he says, "Go."

Thor looks hurt, steps back a bit, and Loki yells, _"Go!"_

And he does, but not without looking at his brother – former brother – with such a look of longing that Loki almost would have found it funny had it not been so _damned painful._

* * *

**9. Beautiful Things – Gungor**

_/All this pain_

_I wonder if I'll ever find my way_

_I wonder if my life could really change at all_

_All this earth_

_Could all that is lost ever be found_

_Could a garden come up from this ground at all/_

He realizes just how different he is when he is younger, that regardless of what Odin says – _The two of you were born to rule – _the next King of Asgard will always be Thor, and it will never be Loki.

Loki isn't sure why this hurts so much, not even at his younger age. When he is older, when he watches his brother and the Warriors Three plus Sif from afar, he can pin the emotion down with ease: Envy.

Envious of a great deal of things, he supposes. Of the strength, the friendships, the bravery and the stubbornness. Most of all, maybe, is Father's love.

He tries to carve his own path in things that Thor is not adept at all in: In sorcery, and literature, and the art of the silver tongue. And still, it isn't enough. Still, the most he gets is a pat on the back and a few encouraging words.

Thor gets a feast, and a crown, and a throne that he doesn't deserve.

Deep down, it just makes Loki sick.

**10. Styrofoam Plates – Death Cab For Cutie**

_/You're a disgrace_

_to the concept of family_

_the priest won't divulge_

_that fact in his homily_

_and I'll stand up and scream_

_if the mourning remain quiet/_

"You are my son." Says Odin, from his spot on the throne. Loki doesn't kneel, doesn't dare show acquiescence to a man, a god, that he wishes were not a god at all. All-Father. What a mockery of a title.

It is just him and Loki, and the threat of the end that hangs between them. Thor had demanded, had argued angrily when Odin had suggested such a thing. But Odin had told him the matter of justice was in his hands, that it wasn't Thor's place to argue over it.

Loki would have given all the gold in Asgard to have seen the look on Thor's face.

"I was never _your _son," Loki spits, eyebrows raised, eyes barely hiding the disdain they held for this one-eyed man above him. "You old fool."

"I raised you as my son," Odin says, waving at the great hall all around him, as if showing proof where there was none. "Treated you as my own, and this is how you repay me?"

Loki looked at him with hateful eyes, and said, "You never treated me as your own, never acknowledged my accomplishments as you did Thor's, never even thought of telling me about my _real _lineage. And you expect _me _to be grateful for it?"

"I expected you to realize my intentions." Odin whispered. "I expected a great deal of you, Loki."

The way he says Loki's name makes his skin crawl, makes him feel like a small child again, watching and waiting for attention that will never come.

"In a way," Loki says, and he looks at Odin for all the world like a man who has lost everything. "That is almost the slightest bit amusing…"

Odin waits, and Loki smiles, small and insignificant.

"I expected a great deal from you as well, _All-Father."_

* * *

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


End file.
